


A Cassandra

by FiKate



Category: 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Genre: Gen, POV Outsider, Responsibility, School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-30
Updated: 2012-01-30
Packaged: 2017-10-30 08:23:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/329747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FiKate/pseuds/FiKate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ruth, the teacher in Bisbee looks on her students and sees their futures. Set post-canon.</p>
<p>
  <i>When her friends would write and ask about the adventures and hope she was finding in Arizona, she would scratch out words until she found a way to explain how complicated life truly was.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cassandra

There were days that Ruth felt more like a Cassandra than a wise Chiron for her students, she’d look over the classroom and it seemed like their futures were unspooling for her to see. She wished that what lay ahead looked more hopeful, but it seemed like out here opportunity was just as hard to find and hold onto as back home in Pennsylvania. When her friends would write and ask about the adventures and hope she was finding in Arizona, she would scratch out words until she found a way to explain how complicated life truly was.

For some of her students, the railroad, the mines and the land under their feet would take them where they wished to go; Hollander’s boys, who talked of California and New York with ease. They had their pick of futures, which they planned to take. While the Evans’ boys had only so many roads they could go down, it had seemed like things would get easier for them after Contention but they hadn’t changed enough. Instead she was watching William become more like his father, lean and drawn, though both boys were eating more and Mark wasn’t coughing as much. By the Spring William wouldn’t be coming to school if not before that, he was the man of the family and for all that he was one of the smartest boys she’d known, his path was clear. It was so easy to see their possible lives; William tied to the land and using it to get Mark something else, but she didn’t think Mark would easily go away. All you had to do was watch how his eyes followed his brother and how he worried quietly whenever there were fights. William seemed to be trying to not look for trouble, but in Bisbee, it was never far away.

The difference between doing well and getting by was measured in a cow or a rainstorm and when things went bad, it was easy to spot. Suddenly whole families didn’t have time for school and there were days she only taught the youngest children so their mothers could do what was needed. Many of the girls were already planning when they’d leave to work on the land as they watched the boys searching for the ones who might add some light to hard days and even change their fortunes. She sighed and returned to her letter home, she would teach them what she could and if she could nudge any paths she would.


End file.
